


Road to Wycome

by clockwork_spider



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: A hint of one-sided Lavellan/Cassandra Pentaghast, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mild Hurt/Comfort, POV Second Person, Trespasser DLC reference, War Table Operation: Protect Clan Lavellan (Dragon Age) - Failure, sad road trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:40:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28867917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockwork_spider/pseuds/clockwork_spider
Summary: The Inquisitor takes a trip to Wycome to lay his clanspeople to rest. Varric, Cassandra, and Solas gets dragged along on this somewhat depressing road trip.How do you mourn everyone you've known for the first part of your life without anyone to share your grief? How do you process their deaths if you were never there?
Relationships: Lavellan & Solas, Lavellan & Varric Tethras
Comments: 11
Kudos: 8





	Road to Wycome

A day after receiving the news of your clan’s demise, you call for another meeting at the war table. 

“I have a personal request,” you ask, knowing how difficult it’d be for them to refuse. You’ve honoured all their requests in the past. Favour is a currency. “As the last known Lavellan, I need to make a trip to Wycome to lay my clanspeople to rest. I doubt the Duke of Wycome would know the proper Dalish funeral rites. I need you all to hold down the fort while I’m gone, so to speak.” 

They stare at you with a mix of guilt and sympathy. No one wants to be the one to remind you that Wycome is a very long way from Skyhold. 

“If I head over without delay, I should be able to make it back before the ball at Halamshiral,” you press. You’ve considered the potential risk and drawback of your long absence, but you feel, at this point, after all the personal favours you’ve pulled for literally everyone else, you’ve earned the right to bury your family.

“Inquisitor, my elven agents—“

“Are not part of my clan. And as much as I hate our numerous customs, I’d like to honour my clanspeople in a manner they approve of. Please.” 

“—Will be ready to receive you and assist you in any way. I’m afraid the Duke of Wycome would have already burnt their bodies. But we’ll make sure to collect any belongings we can gather.” 

“...Thank you.” You say. You want to say something reassuring, like “this means a lot,” but you can’t get the words out. Instead, you say “I’ll be passing by Storm Coast, I can look into the Darkspawn and Red Templar activities on our way back. Make the trip worthwhile.” 

There’s another awkward pause, before Josephine speaks, “Inquisitor, your clan _is_ worthwhile. I’m sorry I’ve failed you.” 

You wish she’d stop apologizing. You didn’t know how to answer to them. So you say “Thanks, keep doing the things you do while I’m away, don’t burn the house down,” and makes a hasty retreat. 

* * *

You bring along Varric, Solas, and Cassandra. Varric because he seems like the worldly type who can give you some guidance on how to feel things, Solas because he probably knows about elven funeral rites better than you do, and Cassandra because you wanted her near. You haven’t gotten the original crew back since your first trip the to Hinterlands, and you say so, at the campfire. 

“Takes you back, doesn’t it? Last time the four of us were together, we were hunting rams. Poor animals, so much meat on them. While poor Cassandra was carrying bloody ram meat on her back, I spotted a shard, so we had to make a small detour up the mountain.” 

“You and Solas kept freezing it. _I_ was half frozen by the time we made it back.” 

“Well we can’t have it rotting, right?” 

That brought a companionable sigh and a few dry chuckles. Blessed normality. 

“You guys don’t have to tiptoe around me all the time,” you say, “I’d welcome any distraction from being sad.” 

That won you a few pitying smiles. 

“If you need an ear, Inquisitor,” Cassandra says with painful sincerity, “we are all here for you.” 

“Thanks for the offer,” you say. You’re not really ready to talk about it. You don’t really know what to say yet. There’s no frame of reference for being responsible for the death of your whole clan. You appreciate it nonetheless. 

* * *

You dreamt about Skyhold, and something about another scouting mission, exploring new places, you can’t remember. The point is, in your dream, your family wasn’t dead. They didn’t show up, but you weren’t aware of their absence from the world. And then you wake, and for a drowsy, blissful moment, before reality hits, you forget about your dead clan.

And then you remember. And you shuffle out of the tent as quietly as you can to throw up in the bushes. 

The unconscious mind has a way of rejecting reality. On your first few nights in your ridiculously big bedroom at Skyhold, you woke up expecting to be in Haven. 

Cassandra wakes up anyway, and awkwardly kneels by your side as you collected yourself, a hand on your back. If you ask to share tent with her, to cry on her shoulder and lay your head against her, she probably won’t say no. But you’re not so bold as to take advantage of her sympathies. 

* * *

You close a few rifts along the way and gain an agent. The trip is looking more productive by the hour. 

* * *

“Hey Varric, how do you grieve? Properly.” 

“Do I look like I’m an expert at it?” 

“You kinda does, actually. No offence. You have this air of… well,” you wave your hand vaguely in the air, “hidden sadness.” 

Varric snorts. “It’s not something to brag about.” 

“I’ve never lost people close to me,” you admit, “I've mourned for Haven, but I’ve known them for so little time.

“I keep feeling that I should be sadder, you know. Like I’m not mourning enough. But I don’t—I don’t even know where to start. I keep on feeling that they’re still out there somewhere, travelling, and that one day I’d get another raven from the Keeper, telling me they’re fine. I’ve been away for so long I’ve gotten used to just _assuming_ they’d be there somewhere in the world, that there’s a place I could always return to if I wanted…” 

“Well… shit,” says Varric. 

“Yeah,” you agree, wiping your eyes, “it’s shit.” 

“All the more reason to take this trip, right? So you can gather their stuff and see for yourself.” 

“I’m afraid that once I get there, they’d really be dead,” you say. 

“That’s life for you, you face it, and you keep going,” he says, a comforting arm around your back. 

“I wasn’t even there. That’s the one thing I can never wrap my head around. The fact that I can give an order at the war table and kill my entire clan and not even be there for it. Who gave me the rights? Why am I allowed to make decisions like this?” 

“It’s either you or someone else, Lucky. Would you have rather it be someone else?” 

“I could have made the right decision.”

“For what it’s worth, Lucky, I’m glad you’ve been the one calling the shots. We could be worse off. You didn’t kill your clan. You made the best decision based on what you knew. It wasn’t your fault.” 

You don't know what to say to that. You wish you can feel the same. You let him hug you. 

* * *

You consult Solas on elven burial customs. He shares his knowledge without derision. Solas has always appreciated an opportunity to teach. 

Emboldened by the civility, you confide, “I’ve been studying Alexius’s amulet.” 

“And what have you found?” He asks, guarded. 

“Whatever power it held had left. It won’t work.” 

“Then I must confess that I am relieved.” He says, “Drawing power from the Fade is one thing, but manipulating the fabric of time itself is dangerous. Tell me, Inquisitor, if it did work, would you have used it to save your people?” 

“That was the consideration, yes.” 

“You’d have left this world to Corypheus.” His tone is carefully kept neutral, but you still hear the accusation. 

“They’re my Clan, Solas. They brought me up. It was my fault that they died. If you have a chance to start over, wouldn’t you do the same?” 

He stares at you, and for a moment, he seem to look incredibly sad and impossibly old. 

“We all wish for a chance to start over, Lethallan,” he says, and for once he doesn’t sound reproachful, but gentle, “but you’re still needed here, in this world, in this time.” 

“It’s always about what I need to do. But I wish I’m not needed. I wish I can just be.” 

“We can’t always choose our fate,” he says, “if it offers any consolation, I wish you could live your life as you please.” 

That strikes you as an odd thing to say, but then, Solas has always been odd. You shrug. “If only it were up to us.” 

“That depressing story you told Varric, about the fisherman whose whole family died.[1] I think I’m ready to start a life catching fish, drinking fermented fruit juice and watching the stars now. You must think less of me for it.” 

“I’m afraid we don’t have that luxury.”

“I guess not,” you say, “I guess we keep going forward.” 

“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” he says. 

“Oh well.” You sigh. “I’d be bored of drinking fermented fruit juice real quick anyway.” 

* * *

Far off in the horizon, the City of Wycome comes within your sight. There you’ll meet Leliana’s agent, and retrieve what’s left of your clan. 

You ride forward. 

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  1  
>  [Link to Party Banter](https://youtu.be/b0zNyv_WdH0?t=9264)  
>  [return to text]
> 
> It's really fucked up that you're allowed to kill your family on a war table operation and no one addresses it and you're just expected to get on with your Inquisitor duty like nothing's wrong. 
> 
> I remember learning that families of WW1 and WW2 soldiers kept asking for their loved ones' body because they didn't know how to process their deaths without seeing a body. And... well... funerals are there for the living, they're there so people can come together and share their grief and process it together. 
> 
> But Lavellan has no one to share their grief with. The whole clan is dead. Anyone who's part of his early life just gone, and he doesn't even get to see them off. How can anyone process that?
> 
> Anyway... please leave a comment if you enjoyed the fic. I don't have a lot of friends in this fandom so it'd be nice to share some feels.


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